Chapter Text
His sandy hair, it looked much like hers in the sunlight.
~
Arilda sat on the roof of the elfsong inn, her hand being clutched by her lover Lae’zel. Not a simple resting hold, but a firm grip, a grip of need, a need to never feel the other let go. She won’t let go, never again.
~
His eyes had that same determination, he spoke to Arilda about the future, about his tribe, and all that he hoped to see in the world, she devoured his words like sweet honey. Savoring every syllable that fell from his chapped lips. He was an adventurer, and he had so many tales. It was before she knew much about the world, she didn’t know he was simply an imaginative young child, much like Arilda herself.
She believed every word of his chivalry, and had asked him, “Can’t you help me escape?” She pleaded with him, she wanted to be rid of this creche, free of the abuse of her mother and sister. He would kiss her lips, and promise her of a day when their love could blossom, but it was never that day.. it never would be.
~
“I still think of him a lot, but it doesn’t hurt as bad anymore..” Arilda broke the peaceful silence of the sunrise. Words falling from her lips that she had struggled to express for some time. Lae’zel squeezed her palm, encouraging her to let it out.
“I used to cry a lot, when I’d think about how he died, how he never got to see all those sights he promised me. We were supposed to do it all together, but.. even if we couldn’t both make it, I want to see them.. all the same. I want to live the life he wanted, so maybe.. maybe if he can see me from wherever we go after, he can be proud of me, he can forgive me.”
Lae’zel hugs her wife. “There was nothing to forgive my bruise, you did your best, you did what you had to.” She comforts Arilda, expecting tears, a breakdown, but none come.
Arilda sits up straight and proud. “I think I know that now.. he smiled at me, before he died, before I did what mother told me to. It was like he was forgiving me before I had done anything, and suppose I had refused.. Lae’zy, suppose that.. Then neither one of us would have got to see views like this.”
Arilda smiles at the sun as it rises over the horizon, its rays shining on the water below. Making the light glimmer and shine, as if it was rising off the waves. “I did it Gabe, I made it.”
She kisses Lae’zel deeply, and lets the sun shine down on her.